


Worst Case Scenario

by sinaddict



Category: Profiler
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-01
Updated: 2007-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-07 21:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinaddict/pseuds/sinaddict
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frannie needs help.  John needs a drink.  The two are definitely related.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worst Case Scenario

The last time Frances Malone showed up on his doorstep at three o'clock in the morning, she wasn't wearing anything under her coat. At least this time she's wearing something, John tries to look at the bright side, even if she is soaked through to the skin so thoroughly that her skirt is dripping on the floor and her white shirt is plastered to her in a vaguely obscene way.

"Oh, hell," he rakes a hand through his hair, stepping aside. "Come in before you freeze."

She takes a step, pausing, uncertainty rolling off her in waves, and it's the uncertainty that makes him stop to actually study her. If there's one thing Frances Malone has always had in spades (or been able to fake expertly), it's confidence. He examines her the way he'd study a suspect and takes note of the things he missed at first. Broken wrist. Weight shifted totally on her left hip. Fading bruise on her cheekbone.

Well, fuck. "Abusive boyfriend?"

Finally she looks up at him, a bitter smile on her face. "Not exactly."

She doesn't want to talk just yet. He gently places a hand on her shoulder to guide her into his apartment and she winces; oddly enough, she also leans into his touch. Lifting a blanket off the couch, he wraps her up in it without a second thought. Apropos of nothing, she says faintly, "I've missed this couch."

"Good. I've worked the numbers and it'll be sixteen years before I can afford a new one."

It's nice to hear her laugh. It's been a rare enough occurence that the sound of it is still new. She curls her legs up against herself, turning slightly to face him. "You know what my dad told me when I was twelve?" her voice is low, husky, like it hurts to speak too loud, and it takes him a second to see the ring of bruises around her neck, and he is definitely not going to startle her right now by demanding to know what the fuck happened.

Really, he's not. No matter how much he wants to. Instead, he asks, "What?"

"Never date cops."

John looks at her curiously, vaguely wondering if he missed some kind of cue or if she thinks he's going to try to take her up on what she offered on her eighteenth birthday. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear with her good wrist and says, "You know, I _hate_ it when my dad is right."

And this still isn't making any kind of sense. "Okay?"

"I'm going to make you promise not to do anything stupid or rash or, you know, manly, when I tell you this," she says seriously, and the corner of his mouth is twitching upward into a smile as he nods. "And you can't tell my father."

He looks up at the ceiling briefly. "Oh, hell."

"He'll freak out."

"Shit."

"He'll completely overreact--"

"Fuck."

"--and do something that might get him in trouble."

"_Fuck_," he pinches the bridge of his nose and wishes he knew more curse words. The more time he spends with Frances, the more sure he is that he's going to need something stronger than 'fuck' sooner or later. "I reserve the right to try to get you to tell him."

"Deal," she agrees, pulling the blanket tighter around herself. She takes a deep breath and looks at him. "Okay, I was dating this guy--"

"A cop?"

"In a way," she hedges before admitting in a voice barely above a whisper, "FBI. SCU."

"You were dating an FBI agent?" He's not sure why he's surprised at that, even as he mentally files away the fact she specified the Serial Crime Unit. He'd look into the members of that team when he got to work. "And Bailey didn't know about it?"

"I generally don't give him updates on my love life. I'm sure he appreciates the gesture," there's a wry smile in her tone as she absently brushes her fingers against the bruises on her throat. "You might want to get yourself a drink for this part."

Oh, this just couldn't be good. He wordlessly goes into the kitchen to retrieve a bottle of whiskey, belatedly thinking to grab two glasses. If he'd need a drink for this, she'd undoubtedly need one, too. He silently downs the first glass and pours himself a second before she even takes a sip of hers. "Okay," he says, deciding to take the second glass slowly. "Let's hear it."

She clasps the glass in her hands, staring at the whiskey like it might hold the answers to the universe. "Okay. Well, the short version is, good sex blinds you to a person's faults."

He raises an eyebrow. "I know."

"Sex is the root of every problem."

"Probably."

"In a way, it's sort of my own fault." And she's already trying to make excuses. He _really_ isn't going to like this. "I really should have known better."

"Frances?"

She finally looks up at him. "Yeah?"

"Stop justifying," he says gently, reaching out and laying a hand over the splint on her wrist. "Whatever it is, we'll figure something out, okay?"

"I'm being stalked by a serial rapist who killed his last victim."

At least he has the presence of mind to tighten the hand holding the glass instead of the one on her wrist. He nods once, drains the rest of the whiskey, and pours himself an extremely generous third drink. "Perhaps you can explain what happened between the good sex and the stalking."

Her eyes widen comically. "Oh-- fuck-- no, John. Two different guys. Although I guess they both-- Um, okay," she shakes her head, backtracking. "Dominic, the FBI agent I was dating, caught a case involving a serial rapist. They had a suspect, but they couldn't pin the guy down with circumstantial evidence. Thing is, well, I match the victim profile--"

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," he figures out way too quickly where this is going, and wishes fervantly he'd made a trip to the liquor store last night. "Please tell me that this part does not end with you being bait for a serial rapist."

"I'm sure it would have gone differently if I was bait with you backing me up." There's something odd about her voice, and he suspects he's going to like the next part even less. "See, Dominic apparently decided somewhere along the way that I was going to be his direct evidence."

"_What?_" John is about three seconds from murder as the implications of that hit him. "What-- Did he-- Are you--" he swallows hard and tries again. "Exactly what happened, Frances. Don't leave out any details."

And she doesn't, her voice extremely clear, calm, as she explains how her boyfriend set her up to be drugged and raped for a god damn case, and by the time she gets to waking up chained to a bed with a lunatic slicing her skin with a knife, John is dangerously to close either throwing up or shooting something. "Wait," he cuts her off mid-sentence, holding up a hand as he closes his eyes. "Jesus, just let me think for a minute."

"He didn't rape me," she tells him, reassures _him_, for Christ's sake. Then her voice goes ice cold, pure steel, "I'm nobody's victim."

"Damn right you aren't."

And that startles a laugh out of her. "Seriously, John, I'm fine," she tells him, and he looks pointedly at her wrist. "Okay, so I'll _be_ fine."

"I believe you," he finishes off his third drink and sets the glass on the table, even though he suspects he'll need another three to make it through this story. "How'd you get away?"

She lifts her wrist, showing him the splint. "Broke it on purpose. It was the only way to wriggle out of the chains." And the fact that she's enough of a survivor to break her own bones to get herself to safety is disturbingly in line with the rest of his mental profile of her. "I had a half a building headstart before he came back and realized I was gone. By the time I got outside, the SCU was waiting for me and Nicky, well, he swore up and down it was a malfunction in the wire."

"And you don't believe him."

It wasn't a question, but she shakes her head anyway. "I was there when Robbie tested the equipment. Three times. And he'd tested it before I got there, too. If there was a problem, it would have been caught. Plus, Nicky's a shitty liar. I met him at a poker game and took him for four hundred dollars."

John can't help but laugh at that. It's just so Frances. "Only four hundred?"

"I let him win two rounds so he'd ask me out," she rolls her eyes. "Should've known better."

There's silence between them for a few moments and he's really not sure he wants to hear anymore of this story. He's already working himself up to an ulcer contemplating all the mental images she's already given him. But the cop in him won't let it go, and he finally asks, "What scared you enough to make you come here?"

There's an understanding in her eyes at the question. She won't deny that Atlanta is the last place she wants to be; too many bad memories and not enough good friends to turn to. She exhales slowly, "He got into my apartment." Minute pause, and she's trembling now, downturned face hiding her emotions like she's seventeen again. "While I was sleeping."

"Christ."

"I didn't even know it, John," there are tears in her voice, and he prays to god she doesn't start crying. If she starts crying, he's going to wind up organzing a vigilante party in the morning, probably with her father's express approval, and he can't do shit to help her if he's in prison. Her words tumble out in a rush, "I couldn't sleep right after... It had been a couple days, so I took a sleeping pill, and when I woke up--"

"It's okay," he tries to soothe, pulling her into a hug on instinct, but she's moved past trembling into shaking and he notices the instinctive way she flinches. "It's okay. You don't have to talk about it."

"I do," she breathes against the crook of his neck, tears falling to his skin as she clings to him suddenly, and he's never felt this twisted-up inside dealing with victims on his cases. It's easier to not know them personally. "I... It's just. Hard."

"I know," he sighs, brushing his fingers through damp strands of dark hair, rubbing her back, making useless attempts at comforting gestures as she cries on his shoulder. He's not sure how long they sit like that; felt like hours, could've been five minutes, and she pulls herself back together in a few short seconds.

He suspects it's second nature for Frances to hide her real emotions.

"Would you believe I haven't cried about this until tonight?" her voice is even more raw, just a breath above a whisper, and he probably wouldn't have heard her if her head wasn't resting on his shoulder. "I mean, not at all. Not even when it was happening."

"I'm not surprised," he continues running his fingers through the hair at her temple. He vaguely remembers his mother using the same gesture to calm him when he was a child, and it's the only one he thinks might help the slightest bit now. "You've got a hell of a survival instinct. Get yourself out first, feel everything later when you're safe."

She exhales slowly, fingers tracing the texture of the splint on her wrist. "When I woke up, my living room was covered in pictures. Of me." He's sure she registers the way his fingers still in her hair. "Me leaving the hospital, me at the school registrar... me asleep in my bed, without a fucking clue what was going on."

"He wanted you to know he could've had you," John summarizes, and he's itching to pick up the phone and wake Rachel to get a profile started. If there was circumstantial evidence on this guy, there's a name, and George can run that through every database in existence. And Bailey... "Jesus. Frannie, you should've called from the hospital. We would've dropped everything."

"I was really hoping Dad wouldn't have to find out."

And that's the part that puzzles him. "Why?"

"He's bailed me out of enough messes."

"First, I don't think he has a quota on that," John says, hopefully gently despite the minor annoyance at that trademark bit of Malone stubborness. "Second, this isn't exactly your mess. You're going to have to tell him. I need the team on this."

She's silent for a long moment, looking down. "I had a 4.0 last semester. I won an additional merit scholarship, even had some of my work published. I just-- I was getting used to him being proud of me, you know?"

"Frances," John shakes his head and sighs in frustration. "This was _not_ your fault."

"Sure it was," she feigns carelessness as she lifts the glass he gave her and sips the whiskey. "Wouldn't have happened if I had decent taste in men."

Deciding to choose his battles (a necessity to maintain sanity when dealing with Frances), John lets it go and leans back against the couch with a smirk. "I think I should take offense to that."

She looks over at him, assessing him for the briefest of seconds. Her mouth curves up in a smile that could've gotten him arrested if he'd seen it when she was seventeen. "Present company... well, you know."

John is definitely in for an interesting week.


End file.
